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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 



THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 




^r\ lnfct^j[)i?tffafion of 




publi^^cr^ MCMXix 






COPYRIGHT, igiQ. EY THE MACMILLAX COMPANY 
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1919. 



0£C -3 191a 



(g)CI.A5;!GS17 



•Vv^ 



Contend 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. An Age of Wonders ii 

II. Preparation for the Event. . . 15 

III. A Wonderful Fulfillment of 

Prophecy 19 

IV. An Historical Event 22 

V. Simplicity of the Narrative... 25 

VI. The Town of Bethlehem 27 

VII. The Wonderful Night Draws 

Near 31 

VIII. The Birth 35 

IX. No Room in the Inn 37 

X. Angel Ministry 40 

XI. Angels and Shepherds 45 

XII. The Concert in a Sheep Pas- 

ture 48 

XIII. The First Vj^iTq^s tc^.-Bethle- 

HEM .."..'.. .''.''. 55 

XIV. The Star and the Wise Men. . 62 



Concentfif 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XV. A Frightened King 65 

XVI. An Impotent Destroyer 67 

XVII. Splendid Gifts 71 

XVIII. Was a Child the Best Christmas 

Gift to the World ?........ 79 

XIX. A World Without Christmas . . 84 
XX. Has the Christmas Song Sur- 
vived THE World War.^* 87 

XXI. The Light of the World 91 



i:6D 



<© littl? tomn of lrtl|lrl)pm. 

If om Bttll vat Btt ti}tt Uf ! 
Abaop tl)g Ji^rp unh hxtutniBBB bIfpjj 

©Ijp fiUrnt Btara go bg ; 
5et in llyg bark Btrrrtfi Bl|tnrtl| 

©I|p pu^rlaBttng SItglit ; 
2II|p l\aptB anh f^arB of all tl|r grarB 

Arp nut in tif^t to-niglyt 

— Phillips Brooks. 



t7l 




I. an age of Wonr>tt& 

]E live in an age of won- 
ders. Great discoveries and 
startling events crowd upon 
us so fast that we have 
scarcely recovered from the 
bewildering effects of one 
y before another comes, and 
we are thus kept in a constant whirl 
of excitement. The heavens are full of 
shooting stars, and while watching one we 
are distracted by another. So frequent is 
this experience that our nerves almost re- 
fuse to respond to the shock of a new 
sensation. We are no longer surprised at 




a Won^txM 0%^t 

surprises. The marvelous has become the 
commonplace, and the unexpected is what 
we now expect. 

Yet we are not to suppose that our age 
is the only one that has had its wonders. 
Other times had theirs also, only these old- 
time wonders have become familiar to us 
and ceased to be wonderful; but in their 
day they were marvelous, and some of 
them equalled if they did not surpass any 
wonders we have witnessed. The Great 
War was the most cataclysmic eruption 
that has ever convulsed the world, but it 
was not more revolutionary and sensa- 
tional in the twentieth century than the 
French Revolution was in the eighteenth 
and the Reformation was in the sixteenth 
century. The discovery of America in the 
fifteenth century created immense excite- 
ment and was relatively a more colossal 
and startling occurrence than anything 
that has happened since. 
C123 



The telescope and the Copernican theory- 
were as great achievements in their day as 
the spectroscope and the nebular hy- 
pothesis are in our day. The most useful 
inventions and the most marvelous pro- 
ducts of the human brain are not the 
railway and telegraph after all. The art 
of printing, which infinitely multiplies 
thought and sows it in the very air and 
every morning photographs the world 
anew, is a more useful invention and in 
its day was a great wonder. Still farther 
back, hidden in the mists of antiquity, 
lies the invention of the alphabet that is 
even more useful and marvelous. It is 
when we get back to the oldest tools, the 
hammer and plough and loom, that we 
come to inventions of the greatest funda- 
mental utility, and we could better afford 
to give up all our modern magic machines 
than to part with these. 

The oldest literature is ever the ripest, 

1:133 



31 Wonntttul jpigtit 

richest and best, and Homer and Shake- 
speare overtop all our modern writers as 
the Alps overshadow the hills lying around 
their feet. What modern preacher can com- 
pare in eloquence and power with Paul and 
Isaiah ? Nature is ever full of new wonders, 
and yet the grass was as green and the 
mountains as grand and the golden nets 
and silver fringes of the clouds were as 
resplendent in the days of Abraham as 
they are to-day. We are the heirs of the 
ages, but wonder and wisdom were not 
born with us, and with us they will not die. 
Where must we go to find the greatest 
wonder? Not to the scientist's discoveries 
and the inventor's cunning devices: the 
greatest marvel is not material but spirit- 
ual; and to find it we must not look into 
the present or future, but go back to the 
first Christmas morning. On that morning 
the Judean shepherds had a story to tell 
which all they that heard it wondered at 



a ^onDerful jl^ig^t 



and which is still the wonder and song of 
the world. The birth of Jesus is absolutely 
the greatest event of all time. Whatever 
view is taken of him he has become the 
Master of the world. Christ has created 
Christendom, silently lifting its moral 
level as mountains are heaved up against 
the sky from beneath. The coming of such 
a unique and powerful personality into the 
world is an infinitely greater wonder than 
the discovery of a new continent or the 
blazing out of a new star in the sky. 

II. ^Preparation for t\)t CDmt 

EAR events may have re- 
mote causes. The river that 
sweeps by us cannot be ex- 
plained without going far 
back to hidden springs in 
distant hills. The huge 
wave that breaks upon the 
ocean shore may have had its origin in a 




SL WottDetfttl 0^ 

submarine upheaval five thousand miles 
away. 

A wide circle of causes converged tow- 
ards this birth; all the spokes of the ancient 
world ran into this hub. When Abraham 
started west as an emigrant out of Baby- 
lonia, "not knowing whither he went," he 
was unconsciously traveling towards Beth- 
lehem. Jewish history for centuries headed 
towards this culmination; this was the 
matchless blossom that bloomed out of 
all that growth from Abraham to Joseph 
and Mary. Priest and prophet, tabernacle 
and temple, gorgeous ritual and streaming 
altar, sacrifice and psalm, kingdom and 
captivity, triumph and tragedy were all 
so many roots to this tree. These were the 
education and discipline of the chosen 
people, preparing them as soil out of which 
the Messiah could spring. The great ideas 
of the unity and sovereignty, spirituality 
and righteousness of God, the sinfulness 

ni6] 



3 ^ontierful jliigt)t 

of sin and the need of an atonement were 
in flaming picture language emblazoned 
before the people and burnt into their 
conscience. Christ could do nothing until 
these ideas were rooted in the world. 

Pagan achievements, also, "the glory- 
that was Greece and the grandeur that 
was Rome/' were roots to this same tree 
of preparation for the coming of Christ, 
though they knew it not. Greece with all 
the glories of its philosophy and art showed 
that the world never could be saved by- 
its own wisdom; and all the laws and 
legions of Rome were equally impotent 
to lift it out of the ditch of sin. Neither a 
brilliant brain nor a mailed fist can save a 
lost world. Yet both Greece and Rome 
made positive contributions to the prepara- 
tion for Christ. Greece fashioned a mar- 
velous instrument for propagating the 
gospel in its highly flexible and expressive 
language, and Rome reduced the world to 



a Wonl>tvtnl jpigtie 

order and hushed it into peace and thus 
turned it into a vast amphitheater in 
which the gospel could be heard. Greece 
also contributed philosophy that threw 
light on the gospel, and Rome gave it a 
rich inheritance of law. 

God thus set this event in a mighty- 
framework of preparation. He got the 
world ready for Christ before he brought 
Christ to the world. He was in no haste 
and took plenty of time before he struck 
the great hour. The harvest must lie 
out in the showers and sunshine for weeks 
and months before it can ripen into golden 
wheat, and the meteor must shoot through 
millions of invisible miles for one brief 
flash of splendor. The centuries seemed 
slow-footed during that long and dreary 
stretch from Abraham to Mary, "but 
when the fulness of time was come, God 
sent forth his Son." 



III. a OTlontierful iFulfillmmt of l^ropljec^ 




3HIS birth was a wonderful 
fulfillment of prophecy. The 
Jews had cherished the 
hope of the promised Mes- 
siah for thousands of years. 
Through all their national 
vicissitudes, enslavement in 
Egypt, wanderings in the wilderness, estab- 
lishment and growth in the promised land, 
internal division and external captivity in 
Babylon, restoration, and final subjection 
to the Romans, this hope burned on the 
horizon of their future as a fixed star. It 
was this that ever led them on and held 
them together and made it impossible 
to break or subdue their spirit. This was 
the dawn that filled all their dark and bitter 
days with the rosy glow of hope. 

Yet the Messiah came not, and as the 
centuries slowly rolled along they must 
have grown weary and at times have 
doubted. Sceptics scoffed, "Where is the 



sign of his coming?" But the great heart 
of the nation remained true to its trust, 
while prophets caught glimpses of the 
coming glory and white-headed, trembling 
old saints prayed that they might live a 
little longer and not die before he came. 
Perhaps this hope was never at a lower 
ebb than when the Roman power was 
ruthlessly grinding the nation down into 
the dust. But suddenly at this darkest 
hour a blinding light burnt through the 
floor of heaven and shepherds ran about 
announcing that the Messiah was born! 
Who can imagine the surprise, the wonder, 
the overwhelming amazement this news 
created? How many were eager to go 
to Bethlehem and see this thing which had 
come to pass! And when it was found to 
be true, they rejoiced with exceeding 
great joy and old men blessed God and 
said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy serv- 
ants depart in peace." 
1:203 



Yet why should they have wondered at 
God's faithfulness in keeping his promise, 
as though he could ever have forgotten it 
or failed to bring it to pass? Why should 
we ever wonder at the faithfulness of 
God? Doubtless in some degree because 
of our human infirmity. Our sense of unity 
with God and trust in him have been 
weakened by sin until we are ready to 
doubt him as though he were one of our- 
selves. His promises also are so far-reaching 
and great, splendid and blessed, they so far 
surpass our thoughts of wisdom and mercy, 
that, even though they have been re- 
peated to us until we are familiar with 
them, when they are fulfilled we wonder 
at the faithfulness that will bring so great 
things to pass. 



1:213 




IV. an l^fetomal etjcnt 

HE story starts with the 
place and time of the Sa- 
viour's birth. Jesus was 
born in Bethlehem of Judea, 
j^ in the days of Herod the 
^^ king. There are many 



M myths and legends floating 
through the world that are often beau- 
tiful and useful, but they hang like 
gorgeous clouds in the air and are ever 
changing their shape and place. They 
are growths of the imagination and lack 
historic roots and reality. They are chary 
of names and dates and hide their origin 
in far-away mists. However powerfully 
and pathetically they may reflect the 
needs and hopes of the human heart, they 
are unsubstantial as dreams and aflx)rd 
no foundation on which to build our faith. 
Heathen religions are generally woven 
of this legendary stuff. The Greek and 
Roman divinities were all mythical. But 
1:22] 



the scientific spirit has swept these imagin- 
ary deities out of our sky and rendered 
belief in them impossible. Our religion 
must be rooted in reality and cannot live 
in clouds, however beautifully they may 
be colored. We refuse hospitality to any- 
thing but fact. Give us names and dates, 
is our demand. 

The Bible responds to this requirement. 
Christianity is an historical religion. The 
gospel narrative begins with no such in- 
definite statement as *'Once upon a time/' 
but it starts in Bethlehem of Judea. The 
town is there and we can stand on the 
very spot where Jesus was born. The nar- 
rative places the time of his birth in the 
days of Herod the king. History knows 
Herod; there is nothing mythical about 
this monster of iniquity. These state- 
ments are facts that no keenest critic 
or scholarly unbeliever can plausibly dis- 
pute. So the gospel sets its record in the 

1:23] 



a WonDtvfnl 0Q^t 

rigid frame of history; it roots its origin 
down in the rocky ledge of Judea. Christ 
was not born in a dream, but in Bethle- 
hem. We are not, then, building our faith 
on a myth, but on immovable matters 
of fact. This thing was not done in a corner, 
but in the broad day, and it is not afraid 
of the geographer*s map and the historian's 
pen. The Christmas story is not another 
beautiful legend in the world's gallery 
of myths, but is sober and solid reality; 
its story is history. Our religion is truth, 
and we will worship at no other altar. 



1:243 



V. ^implicit^ of t^e jl^arratibe 




1H0UGH surcharged with 
such tremendous meaning, 
carrying a heavier burden 
of news than was ever be- 
fore committed to human 
language, yet the simpHcity 
with which the story is told 
is one of the literary marvels of the gospels. 
This event has inspired poets and painters 
and has been embroidered and illuminated 
with an immense amount of ornamenta- 
tion. Genius has poured its splendors upon 
it and tried to give us some worthy concep- 
tion of the scene. But the evangelists had 
no such purpose or thought, and their story 
is told with that charming artlessness that 
is perfect art. They were not men of genius, 
but plain men, mostly tax collectors and 
fishermen untrained in the schools, with 
no thought of skill or literary art. Yet all 
the stylists and artists of the world stand 
in wonder before their unconscious effort 
1:253 



SI Wontietful i^ig^t 

and supreme achievement. No attempt 
at rhetoric disfigures their record, not a 
word is written for effect, but the simple 
facts are allowed to tell their own eloquent 
and marvelous tale. The inspired writers 
mixed no imagination with their verities, 
for they had no other thought than to tell 
the plain truth; and this gives us confidence 
in the trustworthiness of their narrative. 
These men did not follow cunningly de- 
vised fables when they made known unto 
us the power and coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, for they were eye-witnesses 
of his glory. 



1:26] 



VI. tE^t tlTotDn of IBtt^lt^tm 




HE land of Palestine is 
divided from north to south 
by a central range of 
mountains which runs up 
through this narrow strip 
of country like a spinal 
column. About five miles 
south of Jerusalem a ridge or spur shoots 
off from the central range towards the east. 
On the terminal bluff of this ridge lies the 
town of Bethlehem. On the west it is shut 
in by the plateau, and on the east the ridge 
breaks steeply down into the plain. Vine- 
yards cover the hillsides with green and 
purple, and wheatfields wave in the val- 
leys. In the distant east, across the Dead 
Sea, the mountains of Moab are penciled 
in dark blue against the sky. 

At the present time the town has 

eight thousand inhabitants. Its flat-roofed 

houses are well built and its narrow streets 

are clean. It is a busy place, its chief 

1:27] 



a Wonrstttnl 0Q\)t 

industry being the manufacture of sou- 
venirs of olive wood which are sold 
throughout the Christian world. Its princi- 
pal church is the Church of the Nativity, 
which is built over a cave that is one of 
the most sacred and memorable spots on 
the globe. It is believed that this cave is 
the place where Christ was born, and a 
silver star inlaid in the stone floor is in- 
tended to mark the exact spot. It was then 
used as the stable of the adjoining inn, 
and in its stone manger the infant Jesus 
may have been laid. 

At the time of this event Bethlehem 
was a mere village of a few hundred people. 
It might have been thought that Jeru- 
salem, the historic metropolis and proud 
capital of the country, the chosen city of 
God and seat of the temple and center of 
worship, a city beautiful for situation, 
magnificent in its architecture, sacred in 
its associations and world-wide and splen- 
1:283 



did in its fame, should have been honored 
with this supreme event in the history of 
the Jews. But an ancient prophet, while 
noting its comparative insignificance, had 
yet put his finger on this tiny point on the 
map and pronounced upon it a blessing 
that caused it to blaze out like a star 
amidst its rural hills. "But thou, Beth- 
lehem Ephratah, though thou be little 
among the thousands of Judah, yet out 
of thee shall he come forth unto me that 
is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth 
have been from of old, from everlasting." 
And so proud Jerusalem was passed by, 
and this supreme honor was bestowed upon 
the humble village. 

Great men, as a rule, are not born in 
cities. They come up out of obscure vil- 
lages and hidden nooks and corners. They 
originate closer to nature than city-born 
men and seem to spring from the very 
soil. The most noted birthplace in Scot- 
1:293 



a Wonhtxful 0^\)t 

land is that of Burns: it is a humble cot- 
tage with a thatched roof and a stable in 
one end of it. The most celebrated birth- 
place in England is that of Shakespeare, 
and again it is a plain cottage in a country- 
village. Lincoln was born in a log hut in 
the wilds of Kentucky, Mohammed was 
the son of a camel driver, and Confucius 
the son of a soldier. The city must go to 
the country for its masters, and the world 
draws its best blood and brains from the 
farm. It was in accordance with this prin- 
ciple that the Saviour of the world should 
be born, not in a city and palace, but in a 
country village, and that his first bed 
should be, not a downy couch, but a slab 
of stone. 



Cso] 



VII. tCtjr MouDerful ipigljt 2r>ratD0 jjiear 




'OW it came to pass in those 
days, there went out a de- 
cree from Caesar Augustus, 
that all the world should 
be enrolled/* This is the 
point at which the orderly 
and scholarly Luke opens 
his account of the birth of our Lord. It 
seems like going a long way off from and 
around to the end in view. But there are 
no isolated facts and forces in the world and 
all things work together. When we see prov- 
idence start in we never can tell where it is 
going to come out. If God is about to bless 
us, he may start the chain of causation 
that shall at length reach us in some far-off 
place or land; or if he is about to save a 
soul in China he may start with one of us 
in the contribution we make to foreign 
missions. Caesar Augustus, master of the 
world, from time to time ordered a census 
to be taken of the empire that he might 

1:30 



2i WonDtttni 0^t 

know its resources and reap from it a 
richer harvest of taxes. It was probably 
between the months of December and 
March, B. C. 5-4, that such a census was 
being taken in the province of Syria. 

In accordance with ancient Jewish usage, 
all citizens repaired to the tribe and vil- 
lage from which they were descended, and 
were there enrolled. In the town of Nazar- 
eth in the north lived Joseph, a village 
carpenter, and Mary, his espoused wife, 
who though a virgin was great with child, 
having been overshadowed by the Holy 
Spirit and the mystery having been re- 
vealed to her and her betrothed husband. 
They were both descended from the royal 
line of David, and therefore to Bethlehem 
they must go. With us such a journey of 
eighty miles would mean no more than 
stepping on a railway car at nine o'clock 
in the morning and stepping off at noon. 
But with them it meant a toilsome journey 
1:323 



on foot of several days. Slowly they 
wended their way southward, led on by 
the irresistible hand of Caesar, far away 
on his throne. The ancient Hebrew proph- 
ecy of Micah and the imperial decree of 
Caesar thus marvelously fitted into each 
other and worked together. Mary must 
have known of this prophecy, and we 
know not with what a sense of mystery 
and fear and joy she drew near to the pre- 
dicted place where the Messiah was to be 
born. 

Bethlehem sits like a crown on its rocky 
ridge. At length its walls and towers 
loomed in the distance, and then presently 
up the steep road climbed the carpenter 
and his espoused wife and passed through 
the gate into the village. When they came 
to the inn, it was already crowded with 
visitors, driven thither by the decree of 
Caesar that had set all Palestine in com- 
motion. In connection with the inn, gen- 

I 33 1 



a Woriiittinl ipig^t 

erally the central space of its four-square 
inclosure, but probably in this case a cave 
in the limestone rock, was a stable, or 
place for the camels and horses and cattle 
of the guests. Among these oriental people 
it was (and is) no uncommon thing for 
travelers, when the chambers of the inn 
were fully occupied, to make a bed of 
straw and spend the night in this place. 
In this stable, possibly the very cave 
where now stands the Church of the Na- 
tivity, Mary and Joseph found lodgings 
for the night. It was not a mark of degrada- 
tion or social inferiority for them to do 
this, though it was an indication of their 
meager means, as wealthy visitors would 
doubtless have found better accommoda- 
tions. 



n34] 



VIII. mt ^irtl) 




"N that cave Mary brought 
forth her first-born son; 
and as there appears to 
have been no woman's hand 
there to minister to her, 
she herself wrapped the 
Jnew-born babe in swaddling 
clothes; and as there was no other cradle 
or bed to receive it, she laid the child in 
the trough from which the camels were fed. 
This is all we know of what took place on 
that memorable night from which the his- 
tory of the Christian world is now dated. 
The apocryphal gospels, legends that after- 
wards grew up, fill the chamber with su- 
pernal light so that visitors had to shade 
their eyes from the splendor of the child; 
and the painters portray the holy child and 
mother with halos of glory around their 
heads. But this is all imagination and myth. 
Jesus was born as other human beings are 
born, and looked just like a human child. 

1:35:1 



a Wont^ttfal j^igtit 

No one seeing him could have guessed that 
a unique birth had ruptured the continuity 
of nature and brought a divine Man into 
the world. There was no glory streaming 
from his person, and no spectacular dis- 
play of pageantry and pomp such as at- 
tended the birth of a Caesar. The Son of 
Man did not come with observation, but 
stole into the world silently and unseen. 
If we could have gazed upon the Christ- 
child as it lay in its manger, we would 
have been disappointed and thought that 
nothing extraordinary had happened. But 
a great event rarely seems great at the 
time; long centuries may elapse before 
it looms into view and is seen in its central 
place as the axis of history. Outward size 
and circumstance do not measure inward 
power and possibility. God brought only a 
child into the world that night, but in that 
Child were sheathed ominipotent wisdom 
and mercy and might to save the world. 
1:363 



IX. 00 Koom in t^t 31nn 




HERE was no room for 
them in the inn." And so 
Jesus came into a world 
where there was no room for 
.him in the habitations of 
LL^ ^>=il<^-, , rnen. After all this prepara- 
iMI i ir ft •" I tion through which the cen- 
turies grew into readiness for his coming, 
after all these types and prophecies, sacri- 
fices and symbols, after all this weary 
waiting and passionate hope and all these 
golden dreams, when the promised One 
came there was no room for him and he was 
not wanted! "He came unto his own, and 
his own received him not/' Was there ever 
a greater and sadder anticlimax and a more 
cruel disappointment? Let us admit that 
there may have been no fault in this matter, 
no lack of hospitality in the keeper or the 
guests of the inn, as the village was over- 
crowded, and the fact that these late ar- 
rivals were compelled to put up with a 

1:373 



place out in the enclosure, possibly a cave, 
where the animals were kept, was no in- 
tended incivility or uncommon hardship. 
Nevertheless, whatever may have been 
the reason, the fact was that there was no 
room for Jesus in that inn the first night 
he spent in this world, and this fact was 
sadly prophetic of his reception in the 
world he came to save. 

There were few places where he did 
find welcome : generally there was no room 
for him even in places where he had the 
most reason and right to expect it. And 
if it was no lack of hospitality that kept 
him out of this inn, it certainly was the 
lack of this grace and the positive pres- 
ence of hostility that in after life excluded 
him from many places where he wanted to 
be. 

Jesus was not wanted in his own coun- 
try: Herod tried to leave no room for 
him there. He was not wanted in his own 
1:383 



town: his neighbors tried to hurl him 
down a cHfF to his death. He was not 
wanted in his own church: its ministers 
and doctors of divinity fell upon him in 
malignant fury and at last crucified him. 
Even his own family found it hard to 
make room for him in their inner circle. 
Small room was there in this evil world 
for this pure and lowly spirit. Then why 
did he come to it? Because he so loved it 
that he gave himself for it. Small room do 
we still leave for Jesus as we crowd him 
out of our hearts and lives and out of our 
social order and civilization with our sel- 
fishness and sin. Is it a discouraging fact 
that there is so little room for Christ in 
the world? Then let us note the fact that 
there is more room for him to-day than 
ever before, and this room is ever widening. 
How much that inn missed by not hav- 
ing room for this mother and her babe! 
Its finest apartment lost a glory that fell 
11393 



a MonDerful ipisljt 

upon the manger out of which the cattle 
were fed. How much shall we miss if we 
do not have room for Christ ? There is one 
world where there is room for Jesus and 
where he is wanted: heaven. And all who 
are like him shall find room with him in 
its many mansions. 



1ERUSALEM and Rome 
knew nothing of this event. 
The High Priest offered 
, the evening sacrifice una- 
, ware that it was rendered 
obsolete by the coming of 
the true Sacrifice, and 
Caesar slept that night without a dream 
that a Rival had been born who would up- 
root his empire and erect a worldwide king- 
dom. Earth was unconscious of this birth, 
but heaven knew it. There was holy ecstacy 

[40] 




in all the shining ranks above, and " angels 
seem, as birds new-come in spring, to have 
flown hither and thither, in songful mood, 
dipping their white wings into our atmos- 
phere, just touching the earth or glancing 
along its surface, as sea birds skim the 
surface of the sea.** 

Around all the events of the birth and 
ministry of Christ there are the flutter 
and flash of angel wings, and this story 
would lose much of its music and charm 
if it were stripped of its angel ministra- 
tion. The Bible is full of angels. They ap- 
pear to Zacharias the mother of John 
the Baptist, and they find Mary the virgin 
mother, as a beam of morning light finds 
a white-leafed flower, and reveal the mys- 
tery that has come upon her. No sooner 
is the infant Jesus laid in his manger than 
the door of heaven opens and there comes 
trooping forth a radiant throng, filling 
the midnight sky with splendor and pro- 



claiming to earth the glad tidings. Angels 
ministered to Jesus in the wilderness and 
strengthened him in the garden. More than 
twelve legions of angels waited to do his 
bidding when he was arrested. Angels 
rolled away the stone from his tomb and 
sat by the empty grave, announcing his 
resurrection as they had announced his 
birth; and as they thronged the skies at 
his coming, so they hovered in the air 
at his going; and when he comes again he 
shall come in his glory with all the holy 
angels with him. 

These angels are still in the world as the 
ministers of God, though invisible to 
mortal eyes. We see the firefly only through 
the little luminous section of its flight, but 
it still flies on after it ceases to be visible. 
So we see these angels only through that 
shining section of their path in which 
they waited on Jesus; but they are still 
flying through the world as invisible spirits. 
1:423 



3i nionDerful i^ig^t 

The angels of little ones are always before 
the face of their Father in heaven, and as 
they bore the spirit of Lazarus to Abra- 
ham's bosom, so they still may bear de- 
parting spirits up the shining stairway of 
the stars to the eternal home. We know 
not in what wide ways they minister to us; 
how there is a rush of angel wings to the 
cradle of every new-born babe; how they 
constantly pitch their tents around us 
in the viewless fields of air; and how often 
they bear us up lest we dash our feet 
against a stone. 

How little we know of the world in 
which we live! We weigh its rocks and 
grind them up and melt them in our 
crucibles; we fling our nets through all 
space and catch the stars; and when we 
can find nothing more to measure and 
analyze we think we have found and ex- 
plained all. But the finest and best things 
cannot be grasped by these coarse pro- 

1:433 



at ^onuerfttl 0qfyt 

cesses. Sunbeams cannot be weighed on 
hay-scales, and gorgeously-colored bits of 
cloud cannot be caught in a crucible. 
We can weigh the new-born baby, but 
not the mother *s love for her child. A 
telescope cannot see an angel, though 
millions of them may be flying across its 
field of vision. There are more things in 
heaven and earth than are dreamed of 
in our philosophy. In our blind material- 
ism we need to have our eyes opened that 
we may know that this universe, which 
often seems so empty and dark to us, is a 
blazing sea of spiritual splendor in which 
burning suns float as black specks and 
which is thronged with troops of angels 
that do the will of God and wait on us. 



1:44] 



XI. 3ngrU anD ^\)ep\)msi 




TOE Christ-child was born, 
and now the problem was 
to get the wonderful news 
out into the world. There 
^^ were no newspapers to an- 
nounce it in startling head- 
^^ lines and cry it out upon 
the morning air, and, if there had been, 
their reporters would not have been keen 
enough to discover it and probably would 
have had no interest in it. God used other 
means. An angel came from heaven to pro- 
claim the great event to earth. Where shall 
he begin, what human ears shall first have 
the privilege of hearing the glad tidings P 
Let the angel go to Jerusalem, we would 
have said, and call upon the High Priest and 
first take him into his confidence, and then 
let him go to the Temple and stand amidst 
the splendors of that holy sanctuary and 
announce to the assembled priests and 
scribes that prophecy had been fulfilled 

Us] 



and their long-expected Messiah had 
come. Shall not some respect be paid to 
official places and persons? Has not God 
ordained priests and presbyters through 
whom he dispenses his grace and admin- 
isters his kingdom ? 

Yet history witnesses that at times few 
men stand in God's way more than ec- 
clesiastics. They are rarely the men that 
earliest hear a new message: God must 
usually tell it to some one else first. One 
of the most startling things in the Bible 
is the fact that the announcement of the 
birth of Christ was made, not to priests, 
but to shepherds, and the gospel was first 
preached, not in a church, but in a pasture 
field where there were more sheep than 
men to hear. 

What a rebuke is this to our ecclesiasti- 
cal pretension and pride! God can easily 
dispense with us, and may pass us by to 
speak to some humbler soul. The great 
1:463 



people up in the Temple have no monopoly 
of his grace, and it may break out in some 
wholly unexpected place. The gospel is no 
respecter of places and persons. It may be 
preached in a costly church or stately 
cathedral, but it is equally at home in a 
country school house, or in a wooden 
tabernacle, or in a sheep pasture. In sim- 
plicity and catholicity it is adapted to all 
classes and conditions of life. It has the 
same message for priest and people, prince 
and peasant, scholar and shepherd, and all 
receive from it an equal welcome and 
blessing. 



1:47: 



XII. ^^t Concert in a &^ttp JBasfture 




■ N the night of the Nativity 
the shepherds were in the 
field keeping watch over 
their flocks, for those faith- 
fully engaged in the low- 
liest duties may receive a 
splendid visitation from 
heaven. The night did not seem difl^erent 
from other nights. The skies were as serene 
and the stars burned as calm as in all the 
past. The shepherds were as unconscious of 
any coming wonder as the sleeping sheep 
that lay like drifted snow on the ridges. Yet 
the heavens were strained tense with ex- 
pectation and were on the point of being 
shattered into song. Flocks of angels were 
flying downward from the stars, and as 
their white wings struck earth's atmosphere 
they kindled it into radiance with heavenly 
glory, and from the gallery of the skies 
they chanted their song, accompanied 
with all the golden harps and deep- toned 
C483 



3i WonDtttni Jpiglit 

organ pipes of the celestial choir. Never 
before or since was such a concert heard 
in this world, and yet only shepherds and 
sheep were present to hear it. The en- 
circling hills were the grand amphitheater 
in which it was rendered, the grassy 
slopes were the only seats, and there were 
no tickets of admission, but, like the gospel 
itself, it was given without money and 
without price. Musical artists are often 
sensitive and critical and exclusive people, 
chary of a free exercise of their gifts and 
particular as to their audience, but angels 
will sing for anybody. 

The simple-minded shepherds were sore 
afraid at this outburst of heavenly music, 
as wiser people would have been. An angel 
voice sang the solo: 

Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you 
good tidings of great joy which shall be 
to all the people: for there is born to you 
this day in the city of David a Saviour, 

1:493 



a l^ontierful 0qf)t 

which is Christ the Lord. And this shall 
be a sign unto you; Ye shall find a babe 
wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying 
in a manger. 

"Be not afraid!'* Sin has wrought such 
disorder in this world that the thought 
of spirit visitors frightens us and heaven 
itself must not come too near. There are 
great reasons for fear in this darkened 
world, but the coming of Jesus into it is 
not one of them. His only mission is to 
release us from the bondage and bitter- 
ness of sin and let us out into the glorious 
liberty and joy of the sons of God. And 
Christ has in a marvelous degree cast 
fear out of the world and poured joy 
through all its channels, as the sun dis- 
perses the night and spills its splendor 
over hills and vales. 

The good tidings announced the birth 
of a Saviour, and this is the best news this 
sin-stricken world can hear, for sin is the 
1:503 



2i Woni^ttfvd 0Q\)t 

root of all our fear and misery. Back of 
every bitter tear lies a guilty thought 
or deed. This connection is often visible 
upon the surface and stabs us in the face, 
and then it may lie hidden under many 
generations, but it is always there. Sin 
is the disease that poisons all our blood 
and blights our physical and moral and 
spiritual health and happiness. Cut this 
ugly tree up by the roots and all its scarlet 
fruits and poisonous leaves will wither; 
cure this disease and our human world 
will be transformed into a new Paradise 
of God. A Saviour is the supreme need of 
the world, and his birth was news good 
enough to bring singing angels to earth 
and fill all the centuries with song. 

Definite directions were given for find- 
ing the new-born Saviour in the city of 
David, wrapped in swaddling clothes and 
lying in the manger. The angelic message 
was not simply a song in the air, a halo 



a l^onuerful i^iglit 

of celestial light, a splendid but fading 
vision, but it bound itself down to definite 
places and circumstances and left some- 
thing solid. Again we note that this thing 
was not done in a corner and is not afraid 
of facts. Jesus was a true human child and 
took upon him our form down to his in- 
fant clothes. The Christ is a great wonder 
in his divine personality, ever transcend- 
ing our utmost comprehension, but we 
can understand his swaddling bands. Chris- 
tianity is not all mystery, but it also comes 
down close around us and embodies itself 
in many plain facts and duties. "Ye shall 
find the babe." The shepherds were not 
left to wander around in uncertainty, but 
sent direct to the place. Christ is not hid- 
den from us, clear directions point out 
the place where he is, and every soul that 
seeks him shall find him. 

The angel solo broke out into a 
heavenly chorus which gave a broad in- 

1:523 



terpretation of the meaning of the birth of 
Christ: 

Glory to God in the highest, 
And on earth peace among men in 
whom he is well pleased. 

This chorus first acribes glory to God, 
for all things good and beautiful come from 
him and express his glory, as all rays of 
daylight shoot from the sun and are its 
splintered splendor. The gift of Christ 
manifests the glory of God in that it dis- 
plays the divine wisdom in devising the 
plan of salvation, the divine power in 
executing it, and the divine love as its 
mighty motive. The glory of God, that 
streams through the heavens as through 
a dome of many-colored glass, is concen- 
trated and burns with the interest bright- 
ness in the person of his Son. 

The chorus next pronounces peace upon 
men. Divine glory and human good will 
are related as cause and effect. When men 

1:53: 



get right with God they at once get right 
with one another, as the center of a circle, 
when truly located, pulls every point on 
the circumference into its proper place 
in the curve; but when men are at variance 
with God they are at enmity among them- 
selves. Divine glory is the sun shining in 
the heavens; human good will is a garden 
and orchard all abloom with flowers and 
laden with fruit. As the glory of the sun is 
transformed into rosy buds and sweet 
fruit, so is the glory of God transformed 
into human good will. The glory of God 
and the peace of men are never in antago- 
nism, but are always complementary and 
harmonious, they are the two sides of 
the same gospel, two parts of the same 
song. They cannot be separated and must 
go together; in glorifying God we make 
peace among men, and in making peace 
among men we glorify God. 



XIII. ®i)e jfim Wifsiitots to 115etl)k^em 




HE angels' song died away 
in the solemn silence, and 
the shepherds were left 
alone. It was a critical 
hour with them. Would 
they follow this vision and 
turn it into victory, or 
would they let it vanish with the last echo 
of the song and relapse into the old dull 
routine? No, they did not let it pass, and 
life was never the same to them again. "Let 
us now go," they said, "even unto Bethle- 
hem, and see this thing which is come to 
pass, which the Lord hath made known 
unto us." They translated vision into ac- 
tion and presently were climbing the rocky 
slope to Bethlehem. Had these shepherds 
not followed up the message their knowl- 
edge of their Messiah would have imme- 
diately been cut short. We hear divine mes- 
sages and see heavenly visions enough, but 
too often we let them fade into forgetfulness 



and pass into nothingness. A message does 
us no good until it becomes action, the 
grandest vision that ever swept through 
our brain or illuminated our sky leaves no 
vestige of worth unless it is turned into 
conduct and character. "Let us now go and 
see this thing." We do not know Christ 
until we see him as our Saviour. Seeing 
is believing, this is the simplicity of faith, 
and when we see Christ through the direct 
vision and personal experience of faith and 
obedience we are transfigured into his 
likeness. 

"And they came with haste, and found 
both Mary and Joseph, and the babe 
lying in the manger.** Were they dis- 
appointed at the humble mother, wife of a 
workingman, and at the manger cradle? 
These did not match the desire and ex- 
pectation of the Jews. They had long 
cherished the passionate hope of an earthly 
prince who would come wearing purple 



robes and marshaling armies to trample 
hated oppressors under feet and make 
Jerusalem the mistress of the world. 
They would have said that the Christ 
should be born in a palace and laid on 
softest down and covered with silken 
robes. What a surprise was this manger to 
their thoughts and shock to their feelings. 
Were ever deep-seated, long-cherished 
hopes treated with more cruel irony? But 
God's ways are not as our ways. Christ 
was brought into the world at the very 
point where he could get the deepest 
strongest hold upon it and most powerfully 
swing it starward from the dust. He was 
born among neither the very rich nor the 
very poor, but in the great middle class at 
the center of gravity of humanity, by 
lifting which he would lift the world. Had 
he come as a pampered child of wealth 
he would never have got hold of the great 
heart of humanity; but he came as one of 

Us?: 



the people, knitting himself into humble 
relations, growing up among plain folk 
of the countryside and toiling as a common 
workingman. And so when he began to 
preach the common people heard him 
gladly. 

Promise was exactly matched by ful- 
fillment. "Ye shall find a babe," was the 
promise of the angel, and now the record 
reads, **And they found the babe." When 
did God ever lead us to expect anything 
and then disappoint us? He gave us thirst 
that urges us to find water, and matching 
this need he has created bubbling springs 
and sparkling streams. He gave us hunger 
that seeks bread, and it finds fields of 
golden grain and orchards of rosy fruit. 
He gave us minds that seek truth, and 
they find it; he gave us a craving for love, 
and heart matches heart. He set eternity 
in our hearts and gave us deep instincts 
that reach after the Infinite, hearts that 

ns8 3 



a MonDerful jpig^t 

cry, "Shew, us the Father and it sufficeth 
us." Shall all lower needs be satisfied and 
this supreme search and cry of the soul 
be disappointed and mocked? "And they 
found the babe," is the answer to this need 
and promise. God sends us with all our 
deep needs and mysterious longings to 
that cradle in Bethlehem, where they will 
be exactly and fully matched and satisfied. 
He that hath seen this Child hath seen the 
Father. 

The shepherds, having seen for them- 
selves, immediately began to make known 
abroad the saying which was told them 
concerning the Child. The gospel is a 
social and expansive blessing and cannot 
be shut up in the individual heart. We 
are saved to serve, we are told the good 
news that we may tell it to others, we 
get it that we may give it. And the more 
we give it the more we get it, for this bread 
multiplies in our own hands as we share 

1:593 



it with others, as did the loaves beside 
the Galilean sea. Great souls have ever 
grown rich by the lavish prodigality with 
which they bestowed their gifts on others, 
and because Jesus gave himself God hath 
highly exalted him. 

First angels and then shepherds: how 
startling the contrast. Jesus has deep af- 
finities with both: on his divine side he is 
related to heaven, and on his human side 
he is related to earth. And the first men 
he drew to his side were shepherds, rep- 
resentatives of the common people. He 
did not come as a member of any special 
class, especially of the upper class. No 
one can ever save the world by winning 
over the rich and the great. Society can- 
not be lifted from the top. Whoever would 
raise the level of society must get his lever 
under its foundation stones. Taking hold 
of the carved cornice will tear the roof 
off and lift it away from the building, 
1:603 



but raising the lowest stone will also push 
up the spire^s gilded point. He who ele- 
vates the peasant will also in time elevate 
the prince. Jesus did not begin with Caesar, 
but with shepherds, and then in three 
hundred years a Christian Caesar sat on 
the throne. 

The gospel still works from beneath; 
going down into the slums of Christian 
cities; working among the poor and de- 
graded of heathen lands; and seeking the 
lowest tribes of men from whom have been 
defaced almost the last vestige of hu- 
manity and restoring them to the image 
of God. Christ is saving the world as a 
whole. He is not slicing the loaf of society 
horizontally, cutting off the upper crust, 
but he is slicing it vertically from top to 
bottom. 

How wonderful is the simplicity and 
beauty of this gospel that shepherds are 
drawn by it. It takes some brain to read 
1:61: 



a Wont^txfnl j^iglit 

Plato. Shepherds would not get much out 
of Sir Isaac Newton, or a child out of 
Shakespeare, or a sorrowing heart out of 
Emerson. But every one can get milk 
and honey for his soul out of the gospel 
of Jesus. His wonderful words of life have 
the same sweetness and saving power for 
shepherd and scholar, peasant and prince. 
However lowly and unlettered one may 
be there is wide room for him around the 
manger of this Child. 



XIV. ^\)t ^m anti tlje Wi^t ^m 

IHE birth of Jesus created a 
new center for the world 
and set heaven and earth 
revolving around his cradle. 
All things began to gravi- 
tate towards him as by a 
new and more powerful at- 
traction. Angels sang, shepherds wondered, 
1:623 




a new star glittered upon the blazing cur- 
tain of the night, and wise men came from 
afar to worship him. These wise men were 
Persian priests, scholars, scientists, as- 
trologers, students of the stars. Rumors of 
a coming King or Saviour were wide- 
spread in the ancient world and doubtless 
had reached these worshipers of the sun 
to whom the stars were embodiments of 
deity. A new star in their sky, whatever 
it may have been, would instantly at- 
attract their attention and receive from 
them a religious interpretation. The celes- 
tial messenger was a fulfillment of their 
hope and a guide to their feet. They were 
obedient to the heavenly vision, and across 
long burning stretches of desert sand they 
came and appeared in Jerusalem with 
their inquiry concerning the new-born 
King of the Jews. 

They were therefore broad-minded men 
whose horizon was wider than their own 
1:63: 



2i OTlonDerful 0Q\)t 

deserts, or they never would have over- 
leaped their national piety and patriotism 
and prejudice into search and reverence 
for a Jewish king. But something told 
them that the new King, though born a 
Jew, was of universal interest and was 
more than human; they forefelt his divin- 
ity. Therefore they were come to the King, 
not to gratify their curiosity, not to specu- 
late and debate and frame a new creed, 
but to worship him. There was no war 
between the science and the theology of 
these wise men. Their science did not kill 
their religion, and their religion did not 
strangle their science. The stars, accord- 
ing to their simple-minded way of think- 
ing, did not crowd God out of his universe. 
Knowledge and reverence made one music 
in their minds as both science and faith 
grew from more to more. 

A religion that could not stand the most 
searching and pitiless light of scholarship 

1:643 



could not live. Science kills pagan faiths 
as with a stroke of lightning. But the 
gospel lives, because wise men go to Beth- 
lehem and find there, not fiction, but fact. 
It welcomes and inspires the profoundest 
science and philosophy. God in his Word 
is not afraid of God in his works. The 
tallest intellects in all these centuries 
have bowed at the side of this manger. 



XV. a iFrigt)teneD i^ing 

HE inquiry of the wise 
men startled Jerusalem 
and frightened Herod. The 
proud metropolis had not 
yet heard the news. The 
immortal honor of having 
given birth to the Christ 
had been denied to her haughty brow and 
had become humble Bethlehem's imperish- 
able crown. The very name of king gave 
[:65 3 





I 



2i WonDtxfxxl iliig^t 

Herod a terrible shock. He was a usurper 
steeped in crime and was ever trembling on' 
his throne. No hunted, white-faced, Rus- 
sian Czar ever feared nihilist's bomb more 
than he feared rebellion's revolt and as- 
sassin's knife. Rebel after rebel he had 
crushed into spattered brains and blood, 
and here was rumor of another Rival born 
under the shadow of his throne. Herod 
was troubled and his terror sent a strange 
wave and shudder of fear through the 
city. So the same gospel that made angels 
sing and wise men worship and started 
good news out over the world, created 
consternation and trouble up in Herod's 
palace and in his city. Christ came to give 
peace and joy, but his gospel is a sword 
to some. The good man's presence is 
always the bad man's condemnation and 
stirs hatred in his heart. Every good in- 
fluence that falls upon us, according as 
we use it, brings either more joy or trouble, 

1:66] 



and the gospel itself is either a savor of 
life unto life, or of death unto death. 




XVI. an 3Impotmt SDesftto^er 

EROD took swift and 
thorough measures, as he 
thought, to crush his new 
rival. He called the priests 
into his counsel and de- 
manded to know where 
the Christ should be born. 
Too often has the priest been subject to 
the beck and call of the king. Bad men 
will use the church for their own evil pur- 
poses when they can, and will then grow 
condescending and complaisant towards 
the minister and liberal in their gifts. 
We must be ready to receive and help any 
man, but we must beware of men that 
push their way into the church for sinister 
ends. The church is no man's tool, and 
1:67: 



when it is thus prostituted its power and 
glory are gone. 

The priests knew their Bibles and, in 
answer to Herod's question, put their 
finger on the very text and town. They 
knew where Christ was to be born, but 
they did not know Christ when he was 
born. We may have an exhaustive knowl- 
edge of the letter of the Bible and yet not 
know its spirit; we may know many 
things about Christ and yet not know 
Christ. 

Herod, having gained knowledge of 
Christ, immediately turned it against 
Christ. He sent searchers after the child, 
falsely and wickedly pretending that he 
also wanted to come and worship him. 
There is no truth, or means of good, or 
gift of God so holy and blessed that men 
will not turn it to evil ends. Afterward 
Herod, in blind but impotent rage, sent 
soldiers and thrust a sword through every 
1682 



9i ^onDerful j^igtjt 

cradle in Bethlehem; but the Child, 
sheathed in omnipotence, had escaped, 
and Herod could sooner have crushed the 
earth flat than have hurt a hair of his 
head. 

Herod was the forerunner of a long line 
of enemies who have endeavored to kill 
this Child. Pagan Rome poured the fires 
of ten dreadful persecutions on the heads 
of his followers, but they could not ex- 
tinguish his name in fire and blood. Often 
have the fires of martyrdom been kindled 
around his disciples, but they have stood 
faithful to him. Skeptical scholarship has 
tried to reduce his gospel to a fable and 
even to resolve Jesus himself into a myth, 
but as soon could it dissolve the rocky 
ledge of Bethlehem into vapor and cloud. 
And did not Voltaire prophecy in 1760 
that ere the end of the eighteenth century 
Christianity would disappear from the 
earth? Many are the authors and books 
1:693 



a Wonr^tvtul 0i%^t 

that have thought to make an end of 
Jesus, but he still lives the same yesterday 
and to-day. And does not unbelief and 
unfaithfulness in our hearts also try to 
strangle this Child? Every evil thought 
we cherish and every evil deed we do are 
so many swords we thrust into his cradle. 
Herod has a long and numerous progeny, 
and we may find them close to our own 
door and even in our own hearts. 

The star appears to have been invisible 
to the wise men while they were in Jeru- 
salem — in that guilty city, which in its 
pride thought it had a monopoly of divine 
favor, the stars of faith were eclipsed by a 
worldly spirit — but when they emerged 
from the city the star once more led them 
on and stood over where the young Child 
was. God has put many stars in our sky 
to lead us on to Christ. The stars them- 
selves are as vocal with divine messages 
as though every one of them were a golden 
1:703 



bell hung in the dome of the night to ring 
out some good news from God. The Bible 
is a great constellation in which every 
promise and precept is a star, and all its 
stars stand over Christ. All the Christian 
centuries are starred with events and 
achievements that point to Christ as King. 



XVII. fe)plmDiD <&m 

ND they came into the 
house and saw the young 
child with Mary his mother; 
and they fell down and wor- 
shipped him; and opening 
their treasures they offered 
unto him gifts, gold and 
frankincense and myrrh." Is there any- 
thing more beautiful in the Bible, or in all 
literature? The imagination of painter or 
poet may well kindle at the scene. There 
arc the wondering mother, the worshiping 




a Wonntttnl 0^^t 

wise men bowing down, the shining fra- 
grant gifts, and in the midst, as the center 
and glory of it all, the young Child. This 
Child, which even in its infancy subordin- 
ates mother and wise men and gold to 
itself, is indeed a King. Worship is the 
expression of reverence, and reverence is 
the root of all worth and divineness in 
life. The human soul is a poor and pitiful 
fragment until it is completed and crowned 
with worship, a lost child until it finds its 
Father. The wise men found a King to 
worship; they were not following a false 
guide across weary wastes into nothing- 
ness. Our instinct of worship is not false, 
but is true and is matched with its ap- 
propriate satisfaction. Christ completes 
our human childhood with divine Father- 
hood. He that hath seen him hath seen the 
father. 

These Persian scholars were forerunners 
of other wise men going to Bethlehem. 
1:72] 



Through all the Christian centuries men 
of genius have been laying their most 
precious gifts at the feet of Christ. Colum- 
bus had no sooner set foot on a new shore 
than he named it San Salvador, Holy- 
Saviour; and thus he laid his great dis- 
covery, America, at the feet of Jesus. 
Leonardo da Vinci swept the golden gob- 
lets from the table of his "Last Supper*' 
because he feared their splendor would 
distract attention from and dim the glory 
of the Master himself. The hand that 
rounded St. Peter*s dome reared it in 
adoration to Christ, and Raphael in paint- 
ing the Transfiguration laid his master- 
piece at the feet of this Child. Mozart 
there laid his symphonies, and Beethoven 
the works of his colossal genius. Shake- 
speare, "with the best brain in six thou- 
sand years," who has poured the many- 
colored splendors of his imagination over 
all our life, wrote in his will: "I commend 

C733 



my soul into the hands of God my Creator, 
hoping and assuredly believing, through 
the only merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, 
to be made partaker of life everlasting." 
Tennyson begins his In Memoriam, in the 
judgment of many the superbest literary 
blossom of the nineteenth century, with 
the invocation, "Strong Son of God, im- 
mortal Love/' 

Though Jesus wrote no book himself and 
never wrote any recorded thing except 
a few words in the sand which some pass- 
ing breeze or foot quickly obliterated, yet 
out of him have grown vast forests of lit- 
erature. It would tear great gaps in the 
shelves of any library and leave the re- 
maining volumes spotted with blank spaces 
if all the books about him and references 
to him were removed. A thousand books 
have been written about Lincoln and 
eighty thousand about Napoleon, but if 
all the books that were ever written about 

1:743 



a ^ontierful 0qfyt 

Lincoln and Washington and Napoleon 
and Caesar were piled up in one heap it 
would look small beside the mountain of 
books that have been written about Jesus 
Christ. Not only have the writers written 
about him above every other figure in 
history, but in like degree the artists have 
painted him and the musicians have sung 
about him. He is the most fertile theme 
of all literature and art, and the gifts 
that genius have heaped about his feet 
are an incomparable testimony to the ado- 
ration that is paid to him. 

About the first use to which any notable 
invention is put is to spread the gospel 
of Jesus. The very first book printed on a 
printing press was the Bible, and this 
wonderful and perhaps greatest human 
invention has been busier printing this 
book than any other to this day and mul- 
tiplies its cppies by the hundred million 
over the world. The newspaper is a mighty 

1:75: 



a Wont^tvfxxl j]iigt)t 

means of spreading his principles. The 
railway and steamship carry his gospel, 
and the airship gives wings to the same 
good news. Telegraph and telephone flash 
it, and wireless waves set the ether over 
whole continents and oceans aquiver with 
the messages of Jesus Christ. The sewing 
machine sews for him, the typewriter 
writes for him, and even battle ships and 
bayonets may fight for him. Sooner or 
later every inventor must lay his magic 
machine at his feet. For him the states- 
man legislates, the scientist investigates, 
the author writes, the artist paints and the 
singer sings. In an increasing degree Jesus 
is drawing all men into his service, and 
they are laying their treasures at his feet. 
The gold of the wise men was only the 
first gleam of the shining heaps of wealth 
that his followers are now piling on the 
altar of his service. This process will go on 
until the whole world will lie at his feet. 

1:763 



Every generation sends a more numerous 
company to Bethlehem. With every cen- 
tury worshipers arrive from more distant 
lands. From every quarter of the cir- 
cumference of the globe paths now run to 
the manger of this Child, worn deep by 
millions of feet. The nations are beginning 
to come. By and by these converging paths 
will be crowded and all the ends of the 
earth shall bring their gold and shall wor- 
ship at his feet. 

What is the explanation of the mighty, 
worldwide, attractive power of this Child? 
There is only one adequate explanation: 
**He shall save his people from their sins." 
The world is tired of men who come to 
save it with programmes only an inch 
long; who have nothing better to propose 
than longer laws and cleaner sanitation; 
who, unmindful of the experiment in 
Eden, would have us believe that If we 
were only placed in a pleasant garden 

1:773 



where we had plenty to eat and little to 
do we would all be good. The weary world 
wants one who can go to the root of its 
unrest, and it is finding out that this can 
be done by him who is mighty to save 
people from their sins. All who put their 
trust in him are blessed with purity and 
peace. In this great world, lost in sin and 
beaten upon by infinite mystery, there is 
only one voice that comes like music across 
our life with power to cleanse and comfort 
us; and this is the Voice whose infant cry 
was first heard in Bethlehem. Let us now 
go even unto Bethlehem while the song 
is in the air and see this Child and worship 
at his feet. 



nrsn 




XVIII. WdiS a €\)i\^ t^t Wtsit Ctin0tinaflf 
eiU to t^e Wot\X}7 

"HEN we come to think of 
it, does not a child seem 
an insignificant and disap- 
pointing gift for God to 
make to the world? After 
so long preparation and so 
great promises and hopes, 
would we not have expected some greater 
and more wonderful gift? But a child is so 
common; millions are born every month; 
there is nothing unique and wonderful 
aJDOut a child. Why did God not rather 
give some invention or discovery or piece 
of knowledge that would revolutionize and 
bless the world? Would he not have done 
enormously more for mankind if in the 
first century of our era he had given them 
the printing press, or the steam engine, 
or the electric light? May there not yet 
be waiting for us some invention or knowl- 
edge that will work wonders beyond any- 

1:793 



3i Monderful 0qfyt 

thing we have dreamed and shower ma- 
terial comforts on the world? 

This thought grows out of our blind 
materialism which leads us to think that 
matter is the master of mind, circumstance 
more important than character and the 
things of the body than the things of the 
spirit. But material improvements do not 
necessarily improve men. The locomotive 
has little relation to character. It picks 
a man up at one point and drops him at 
another the same man he was. If he is 
selfish and wicked at the beginning of the 
journey, he is just as selfish and wicked 
at its end. It is a simple fact that all our 
material progress works little improve- 
ment in morals. At the hour Christ was 
born Rome had an amazing material 
civilization, blazing with splendor, but 
all the more rapidly was it rotting at the 
core. 

But a child has in it the possibility of 



a l^onDerful 0qf)t 

growth and of imparting regenerating 
ideas and a new life to the world. Sir 
Isaac Newton did not give any money or 
material gift to the world, but he gave it 
scientific ideas and a scientific spirit, and 
in giving it this he raised the intellectual 
level of the world and gave it the power of 
making millions of money. Shakespeare 
gave the world no new machine, but he 
opened the eyes of men to see heavenly 
visions and thus enriched them with 
treasures above all the gold of the world. 
Martin Luther invented no steam en- 
gine or sewing machine, but he taught 
men the rights of conscience and created 
our modern liberties. No material thing, 
however powerful and splendid, can make 
a better world: this work calls for better 
men. Therefore when God brings into the 
world a child endowed with superior in- 
tellectual and moral power, though his 
gift is only a babe and seems insignificant 



and hardly worth counting among so 
many, yet he has sent one of the greatest 
gifts of which his omnipotence is capable. 
An old German schoolmaster always took 
his hat off to each new boy that came into 
his school, never knowing what elements 
of genius might have been mixed in his 
newly molded brain. When Erasmus came 
out of that school his prophetic instinct 
was justified. Never despise a child, for 
in it sleeps some of the omnipotence and 
worth of God. 

But the Child which God gave the world 
as its Christmas gift was no merely human 
child however richly endowed. This Child 
was human and was born in time, but he 
was also divine and came forth from eter- 
nity. The possibilities that were sleeping 
in this Child were foreseen by the prophet 
Isaiah in the names that were propheti- 
cally given him, every name being a win- 
dow through which we can look in upon his 
1:823 



Si l^ouDrrful jpigjit 

personality and power, every title being 
one of his crowns: "His name shall be 
called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, 
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.'* 
All these powers and possibilities are in- 
carnated in this Child, and he is working 
them out in a redeemed world. God made 
no mistake, then, he gave us no small and 
common gift, but he did his best and gave 
the world the greatest possible Christmas 
Gift when this Child was born. All the 
grass in the world came from one seed, all 
the roses from one root, and all the re- 
deemed that shall at last populate heaven 
and fill it with praise throughout eternity 
shall be saved by the grace and clad in 
the beauty of this Child. 



n833 



XIX. at Wot\^ l^itijout CJ]t:i0tma0 




IHAT would be the effect of 
blotting Christmas out of 
the calendar of the world? 
Imagination would have to 
explore wide and deep in 
order to trace all the con- 
sequences. The gladdest 
holiday of the year would fade into a com- 
mon day. The weeks that precede it would 
lose all their interest of preparation and 
expectation and would sink into dull days. 
The stores would not blossom out into bril- 
liant bazars, cunning fingers would not be 
busy in secret, there would be no making 
and buying and hiding gifts, and there 
would be nothing waiting to be disclosed on 
Christmas morning! The morning of this 
day would dawn gray and bleak just like 
any other morning, and no red letter would 
distinguish it on the calendar of the year. 
There would be no glad greetings with the 
first streak of light, no rush for gifts and 
1:843 



a WorUytvfuX 0Qfyt 

joyous surprises, no home gatherings, no 
neighborhood festivities, no benefactions 
to the poor. The tide of life would not on 
this day rise higher and run fuller and take 
on richer colors and sparkle with brighter 
joy, but it would remain at the old level 
and creep along in the same dull sluggish 
way. 

Deeper losses would result from blotting 
this day from the calendar. There would 
be no story to tell of that wondrous birth 
that took place on the first Christmas 
morning and fixed the date from which all 
other events are dated. To blot Christmas 
out of the world we would have to blot 
nineteen Christian centuries from the 
history of the world; in truth, we would 
have to go farther back and dig up the 
roots of Hebrew history running through 
twenty centuries. We would have to go 
through the world and destroy every 
church and Christian institution: nearly 



every hospital would go down under this 
fell decree, and most of our schools and 
colleges. Our Bibles would all have to be 
burned, and our literature would be per- 
forated and ripped to pieces. Furthermore, 
we would need to pull out of human char- 
acter and life all the strands of purity 
and peace, of faith and love and hope, 
that have been woven into the hearts and 
lives of men by the hand of Christ. We 
would have to stop all our preaching and 
praying and hush every Christian hymn 
and song. We would have no word of salva- 
tion from sin, no comfort in trouble, and no 
hope as we look out into the beyond. The 
world would lose its Light and be wrapped 
in night. 

Do we want such a world? Can we be- 
lieve that God would make such a world 
and leave us as "infants crying in the 
night, infants crying for the light, and with 
no language but a cry"? 
1:863 




XX. 1^30 t\)t Ctjri^tmafi; ©ong S)urbit)eD 
t\)t Wotli} Wax! 

UT has not the Christmas 
star already been extin- 
guished in such a night? 
Has the angels' song sur- 
vived the World War? 
Have not its notes of glory 
to God in the highest and 
peace among men been utterly drowned 
and lost in the rattle of machine rifles and 
the mighty explosions of monster guns that 
shook Europe and reverberated around 
the world? Was not this war the flat denial 
and total annihilation of the message and 
spirit of Jesus, entirely silencing the angels' 
song that gladdened the earth at his birth? 
Can it even be heard after many months 
when angry voices and the crash of falling 
wreckage still disturb the world? These 
ominous questions are causing anxiety 
to many Christian souls and may well give 
us pause. 



But the gentlest forces are ever the 
mightiest and last the longest. The sun- 
light is swallowed up in the storm and the 
very sun itself seems blotted from the 
heavens, but presently the blackness breaks, 
the clouds roll away, and the sun again 
smiles upon the scene, as, indeed, it had 
never ceased to smile. The song of the 
birds is hushed in the crash of thunder and 
the rush and roar of wind and rain, but 
after the storm passes their dulcet voices 
again sing out with fresh gladness in their 
song. A hammer can pound ice to powder, 
but every particle is still unconquered ice, 
and only the gentle kiss of the sun can 
subdue and melt it into sweet water. High 
explosives and poisonous gas can devastate 
the earth, but only the balmy breath of 
the springtime can clothe it in verdure and 
cause it to burst into bud and bloom. 

The war has indeed enwrapped and in a 
degree wrecked the world, and the voices 
CSS] 



of peace were little heard in the storm. 
But now that the guns are silenced and 
the clouds are rolling away peace is again 
surging up in the heart of humanity as a 
passion and is at the work of clearing 
away the wreckage and of rebuilding the 
new and better world that all men hope 
is to emerge out of the ruins of the old. 
Alexander and Caesar and Napoleon and 
the Kaiser — mark the anticlimax! — are 
gone, their swords are rust, their dreams 
are dust, but Jesus Christ remains the 
same yesterday, to-day and forever. His 
penetrating and persistent voice was not 
really silenced even during the confusion 
of the war, rather was he then speaking 
in the thunderous tones of judgment; and 
now the Christmas angels are being heard 
again as birds are heard after the storm. 
The hand of Christ has been shaping the 
course of the world, even when convulsed 
in war, and is now remolding its plastic 



elements into form. He has not been de- 
throned and discrowned in this world- 
cataclysm in which so many thrones and 
crowns have come tumbling down, but is 
still the Prince of Peace. The Man of 
Nazareth is speaking with a majestic voice 
to-day to all these nations and asserting the 
waste and wickedness of war and the 
brotherhood of man as they were never as- 
serted before, and urging them to build a 
league of peace that may be the greatest 
outcome and blessing of the war. A new 
world may arise out of the ruins of the old 
that will be worth all the blood it cost and 
may be the prelude of the fulfillment of all 
the dreams of prophets and poets of a Par- 
liament of Man under the rule of which 
"the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in 
universal law.'* Then shall the angels' 
Christmas song break from the gallery of 
the skies and fill all the world with its notes, 
" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
1:903 



peace among men in whom he is well 
pleased.'* 




XXI. ®i)e lligljt of t\)t Wotln 

ESUS was born into a dark 
world. Politically it was 
bound. Despotism con- 
stricted and strangled it at 
the top, and at the bottom 
its millions were shackled 
slaves. Intellectually it was 
decadent. Philosophy had stopped and 
stagnated in Athens, and no fresh current 
of thought was irrigating the world, no new 
light was breaking upon the human mind. 
Religiously its pagan faiths were outworn 
and dying or dead. Judaism itself had gone 
to seed and was only a dry husk. Morally 
the world was terribly corrupt, from its 
lowest slums up to the palaces of the rich 
where sensuality ran riot. As a consequence 



of these conditions, pessimism spread a dark 
pall over the world. Men everywhere were 
in despair. They entertained the darkest 
and bitterest views of life. Nothing seemed 
to them worth while. The world was all a 
muddle, and the human heart cried out that 
life 

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, 
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; 
And we are here as on a darkling plain 
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight. 
Where ignorant armies clash by night. 

Into this dark world Jesus was born. 
He was only a babe, a single speck in the 
vast mass of humanity, but this Babe 
was luminous and shone with heavenly 
light. A star shed its radiance over his 
cradle — symbol and prophecy of his mis- 
sion. As he grew in years he grew in lu- 
minosity until he lighted up Palestine 
and shot some rays across the borders of 
that little land into the great world. Death 
1:92] 



could not quench his growing light, but 
he rose to heaven, as the sun rises to its 
zenith, whence his light now falls in in- 
creasing splendor over all the world. 

This Light has been shining nineteen 
hundred years and it has made a wide and 
deep impression on the darkness. Open the 
map of the world, and its bright spaces 
correspond with and are largely caused by 
the shining of this Light. The teachings 
and spirit and power and personality of 
Jesus are illuminating the world. Political 
despotism and slavery cannot live under 
the light of his gospel of brotherhood and 
are fleeing from his presence. Intellectual 
light is flooding all Christian lands: has 
it not been touched by his torch? Moral 
darkness is being penetrated and dissi- 
pated by the purity and peace of Christ. 
Pessimism meets its match and victor in 
his mighty jubilant optimism. He clears 
the world of the muddle of its confusion 

1:93: 



a Wonr^tttnl 0%^t 

and turns it into our Father's house. He 
lifts life up and makes it worth while in 
its great and grand meaning. 

As from the uplifted hand of the Statue 
of Liberty in New York harbor there shoots 
a sheaf of electric light that illuminates all 
the bay, so from the pierced hand of 
Christ there shines a blaze of light that 
penetrates and scatters the darkness of the 
world. We live in this Light. This is the 
meaning and true blessing of Christmas 
time. This is the real joy that breaks over 
the world on Christmas morning. All our 
gifts derive their significance from this 
Gift; all our joys are scintillations of this 
Light. 

O thou Light of the world ! In thy Light 
help us to see light. May sin not wrap us 
in darkness, may not a worldly life breed 
in us a spirit of bitterness and despair. 
Shine upon us with the light of thy truth 

C943 



a Wonr>txful 0qf)t 

and thy love. Light up the world for us 
so that we shall see it as our Father*s 
house. May thy presence put a deeper, 
richer, gladder meaning into all our life 
and pour a new splendor over all the world. 
And may nations come to thy Light and 
kings to the brightness of thy rising. 




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